Calendar of Events

Through our brilliant events and festivals, you’ll experience the vibrance of the Champaign-Urbana area! Discover something new every day!

Note: Fundraisers, sales, and meetings related to membership-based groups are not included on the calendar. 

Multi-Species Justice Symposium: Paradigms, Practices, Possibilities

Levis Faculty Center

919 W. Illinois, Room 210

Urbana , il 61801


Category

Workshops & Education

Hours

February 13, 2026

1:00pm - 5:00pm

View Website

How does recognizing the fundamental entanglements of humans
and the more-than-human world impact notions of "justice"?
Drawing on perceptions from diverse communities, disciplines,
and social, political, and historical contexts, this symposium will
provide a space for us to grapple with the question:
What might a more just world or worlds look like in the 21st century?

Alex Blanchette and Daina Bray join an interdisciplinary group
of scholars for an extended conversation about multi-species justice.


1:00 PM | Opening remarks, Jane Desmond
1:15 PM | Alex Blanchette, The Biology of Dignity: Workplace Democracy, Multispecies Health, and American Slaughter

This talk revisits the history of slaughterhouse unionization and workplace democracy as an inadvertently more-than-human project. The talk’s goal is not to romanticize labor in troubling environments, however, but instead to theorize the ways human solidarity could ripple through animal bodies, minds, and the microbial ecologies of the rural United States.

2:00 PM | Conversation with Will Sander (Director, DVM/MPH joint degree program)
2:15 PM | Audience q&a

2:45 PM | Introduction, Kenworthy Bilz (Law)
3:00 PM | Daina Bray, We Are In This Together: Farmed Animals & Multi-Species Justice

Drawing from her background in farmed animal advocacy, Daina will discuss how the law’s failure to address the many externalized harms of industrial animal agriculture endangers not only the animals themselves but also workers, farmers, the environment, the public health, and food security. Legal exemptions for animal agriculture—grounded in the treatment of animals as property available for commercial utilization—are creating many present harms and endangering our collective future.

3:30 PM | Conversation with Chris Green (Executive Director, Animal Legal Defense Fund)
3:45 PM | Audience Q&A

4:00 PM | Closing panel and closing remarks

This event is free and open to the public

Category

Workshops & Education

Hours

February 13, 2026

1:00pm - 5:00pm

View Website

Google Maps Generator by embedgooglemap.net

We use cookies to ensure that you get the best experience on our website, although the cookies we use do not contain personally identifiable information. By continuing on this website or by clicking “ I Accept Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device. You can learn more about our privacy policy, how we use cookies, or how to disable cookies by clicking on the " Learn More " link at the end of this statement. Learn More.

I Accept Cookies I Decline Cookies